Maintaining altitude

It's that time of year again when anyone who can get out of Houston gets out of Houston. And not a moment too soon - when Texas is too cold, the power grid fails. When Texas is too hot...the power grid fails. Various friends have disappeared to Missouri, Colorado, and Minnesota, or simply jumped in a van and scarpered to anywhere under 100F.

We decided to repeat our New Mexico adventure of last year and head to the mountains, the Sacramento Mountains, north of El Paso and the closest high ground to Houston's swampy locale. Having done Ruidoso, this time we're summering in a little village called Cloudcroft, one of those amazing American places that was at the top of a logging railroad and someone thought "Let's build a tourist lodge here and charge people to come!" The railroad is long gone, although some gravity-defying trestles remain, and the village is now a hiker's/tourist's paradise on the long and winding mountain road from Dallas to Phoenix. You can take the much flatter and boring Interstate, but why?

Though most of our time is spent in the blessedly cool (and somewhat rainy) outdoors, things are a lot more open this year with the US vaccination program in full swing. We've revisited the largest pistachio in the world - naturally - but also managed to see a few museums and visitors centres, and even enjoy a cheeky beer at the local Cloudcroft Brewery.

New Mexico remains a fascinating and inspiring state, open and empty and close to unchanged from when the Mescalero Apache wandered freely around these parts. The Sacramento Mountains skirt the eastern side of the huge Tularosa Basin, and whether you're on the hills looking down or in the valley looking up, the clouds and storms and greens of the Lincoln National Forest are breathtaking. And, more importantly, about 30 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than Houston.

School has finished, so here's Pete's graduation dinner of beignets. Or donuts, as we call them.

A quick picnic stop on the 12-hour drive.

Our mountain hut.

The biggest pistachio in the world.

The biggest pistachio ice cream in the world.

Just two guys hiking the trails.

Some rock climbing.

Down through the forest to White Sands.

That's the place!

One of the old railway trestles. I wouldn't like to take a train along it now.

Just up from us is the US Solar Observatory.

Strange physics mirror stuff, I don't know.

The Dunn Solar Telescope.

Relaxing with a beer (or four).

Fruit growing is a big thing around here!

The cherry doesn't fall far from the tree.

Do cherries grow better in the mountains? I have no idea, but these ones were very tasty.

The not-at-all-horrifying Apple Boy.

Driving the fire truck at the Sacramento Mountains Museum.

And riding the (stationary) caboose.

A little bit of mountain music.

At the New Mexico Museum of Space History. They still launch rockets at the White Sands Missile Range.

OMG!! A genuine tribble!!! This is the greatest day of my life.

And a Star Trek transporter! Non-functional :(

Or maybe it does work! First Davieses on the Moon.

Our cabin also has a pool table! And darts - time for Pete to be educated in a true British sport.

Another day, another hike.

Probably more impressive in the winter.

Getting in the swing.

Down at the Tularosa Basin Museum, where a supremely significant moment of computing gaming history is documented.

Returning to one of our favourite hikes at Monjeau Peak.

 

Little fluffy clouds.

And after all that, recaffeinating at the Black Bear Coffee Shop.

A shot in the arm

"The United States can always be relied upon to do the right thing — having first exhausted all possible alternatives," Winston Churchill once said (before adding: "Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.") 

But when it comes to this great country's Coronavirus response it could hardly be truer; after many months of paralyzing denials and mess-ups, when that other guy was in the White House, suddenly we're in overdrive. Almost 100,000,000 shots are "in arms", with over 54,000,000 fully vaccinated. However you add it up, the numbers are impressive.

Because of this, Texas threw open the doors to the pharmacies today (after throwing open the doors to the bars first) and everyone over 16 can now get the miracle vaccine! I assumed that lines would form around the block, and was happy to wait a few weeks while those more needful or desperate than me got jabbed, but no! I casually checked online this morning and got an appointment for the same afternoon.

Perhaps it's because everyone who wanted a vaccine has already got one. There have long been rumours of the more rural parts of the state giving it to whoever rode up, with Houstonians driving a few hours inland to search out the magic vials. In Houston, due to the...um...interesting way American healthcare is set up, if a hospital has given all high-risk people who need it a dose, anything left over is a free-for-all. Phone and e-mail chains involving someone's aunt whose neighbour's daughter is a nurse etc. have lit up, and some clinics have been swamped if word got around of vaccines going spare.

It may also be because of an anti-vaxx sentiment still floating about, where Bill Gates - not content with knowing everything because you already have Windows on your PC - is trying to put a microchip in you! This is to do with 5G mobile phone networks, but I don't understand that bit. The big question in America is whether shots are soon to be enforced because of the conspiracy madness, either by businesses or government (hiss!) insisting on vaccination certificates before granting you service.

Or maybe I just got lucky. It was in a pharmacy at a local supermarket, so it's possible I received an "own-brand" injection rather than something official, but the little card did say I was getting Pfizer-BioNTech - the Rolls Royce of vaccines, I like to think.

I was very brave, and did not cry as the pharmacist pumped me full of deranged genetic material. "Oh!" I said. "That's was - " "It's never as bad as you think," she cut me off. "Wait 15 minutes." Then she was gone.

I sat quietly, just like I was told, with a timer on my phone, to see if I had an allergic reaction. The pressure was distinct. Were these aches and pains new, or just because I was old? Did my elbow always click like that? Was I able to see in 3D before? Were the voices in my head always this insistent?

My existential dread was cut short by my timer beeping, so after smiling and waving to the disinterested pharmacist I walked home, wondering exactly how I was different, and when I will be rushing out to the pubs and clubs again, or return to licking door handles the way I used to. I have the second shot in April, so by the end of the month I will, more-or-less, be invincible. Hooray for science! But like a good citizen I won't be giving up the mask, the hand washing, the distancing (ugh - hugs!), the Holy Water, the methanol, or the hydroxychloroquinine just yet.

"You may feel a little prick." "That's nothing new."

Louisianan Spring Break

School's out forever, crooned Alice Cooper as he memorably predicted the Covid-19 pandemic. After several weeks of freezes, IT problems, and goodness knows other catastrophes, this week was actually an official break for Pete's 2nd Grade class. And while we thought about heading to Miami, we concluded it was more sensible to stick closer to home.

So we skipped the state border and found ourselves in Louisiana, somewhere we went at New Year. These days I pick holiday destinations by mentioning places to American friends and if they say "who would vacation there?" I immediately book. This trick worked again as we found ourselves virtually the only people in the beautiful state park of Lake Claiborne.

As I've mentioned previously, I'm of an age where I believe I've camped enough. Or maybe I've just moved the goalposts of "camping" to include cabins with their own toilets, kitchens, telly and wi-fi. Either way, roughing it isn't half as rough as it once was, and I'm thankful for that. We spent a lovely week hiking, kayaking, building fires...and being able to shower privately afterwards. It's the little things.

Of course it was all over too quickly, and we were soon heading back from the empty wilds to our city of 5.5 million. It's so much easier to socially distance when you're sharing a square mile with only a couple of armadillos and a possum.

Why is he so happy? Oh yes, no school for a week.

Landing a big one.

Woman wistful with white wine.

Kids, eh?

Off in a kayak!

The "swimming beach". We didn't.

More attempted fishing.

Like a good Cub Scout, Pete got down to some firestarting.

To cook Spam!

Yeah...no thanks.

Another foray onto the lake...which I skipped.

More fire.

One of the armadillos!

And an opossum! Not as cuddly as the Aussie namesake, but very useful.

Striding out.

The park boasted "The #1 and #2 best frisbee golf courses in Louisiana". How many does the state have?!

Better than Spam: a s'more.

No kayaking today. 

Taking a short rest.

Final Louisianan sunset.